Cooking dried beans vs. Buying canned beans

Shared on April 13, 2018This post may contain affiliate links which means I make a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you. See the disclosure policy for more information.

This week I have been reading and thinking about beans more than is probably healthy for the average adult. I even checked out from the library. Who even knew such a book existed?! I happily added it to my stack. I’m just doing my small part to keep Portland weird.

And for good reason. Beans are incredibly versatile and economical. My pantry is stocked with cans of beans I bought, and my freezer is stocked with bags of beans I cooked. If I can find quality canned beans on a good deal, I stock up. If I have the time but not the money, I cook my own.

Once you see how easy it is to cook beans from scratch, it will give you one more way to stretch your grocery bucks as far as they can go. After all, thawing a bag of beans is every bit as easy as cranking open a can. Like I read on one online forum, “Beans in the freezer are like money in the bank.” Now that’s my kind of math. And the added bonus? Not only do you spend less money, but you also control the ingredient list.

Health Benefits:Beans are high in protein and low in fat. They are a great source of soluble fiber which helps remove harmful cholesterol from your body before it’s absorbed. Incorporating beans into your diet can help lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk for heart disease, heart attacks, and breast & prostate cancer. In fact, studies have found Hispanic women have half the risk of breast cancer as white women. Researchers attribute this, in part, to the high quantity of legumes in their diet. Cool beans.

Ingredients:The ingredient list in most commercially canned beans is actually pretty basic: water, beans, and salt. Most brands also contain calcium chloride which is a firming agent, and many brands include sugar which is just wrong. I’m not interested in debating this topic, but if you’re looking to cut down on BPA consumption in canned products and can’t find an affordable option, cooking dried beans is a great place to start.

Price & Quality:There is a reason when counseling people out of debt. It’s cheap. You can find canned black beans at Winco for as low as .60/can. Dried black beans are even cheaper than this. Winco sells their generic bags for .90/lb. One pound of dried beans = about six cups of cooked beans. Six cups for around a buck!

The bulk section is often an even better deal. Fred Meyer, Winco, or Bob’s Red Mill are all good options, depending on your budget and your taste. If you order through Azure Standard, their selection is very similar to Bob’s, but their prices are cheaper. Look for a store with a high turnover rate to ensure the freshest products and the best results.

Of course, if we’re debating quality, canned beans can’t even begin to compare with the flavor and texture you get from cooking them from scratch. So let’s get started… Today we’ll cover cooking dried black beans. This soaking & cooking method will work for any bean that requires a long cooking time such as black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, cannellini beans, pinto beans, etc. Pretty much anything but lentils.

How to Soak and Cook Dried Beans

Pour the dried beans onto a rimmed baking sheet. Pick out any cracked or wrinkled beans, as well as any small stones or dirt.

Dump the beans into a colander and rinse with cold water.

Put the rinsed beans in a large bowl and cover with several inches of cold water. Soak overnight, around 6-8 hours.

There are a couple different reasons for soaking beans before cooking them: 1) It helps them cook faster. The larger the bean, the longer the soak. The longer they soak, the faster they cook. and 2) It leaches out carbohydrates that our bodies cannot digest. When beans move through our lower intestine, bacteria breaks down what our digestive enzymes can’t, resulting in gas. One author called it “digestive difficulties.” My 2-year old calls it something else, but we won’t get into that. Ok, that might fall into the too-much-information category, but I think it’s fascinating. Remember, I’m the one who reads The Bean Bible, after all.

Soaking isn’t absolutely necessary and some people avoid it, saying it also removes vitamins and minerals. Personally, I’m all about cutting down on cooking time and “digestive difficulties.” I’ll get those vitamins and minerals from other sources, thank you very much.

In the morning, pour out the water and rinse the beans. Black beans will be pleasantly plump and purple.

Pour the beans into a wide, heavy pot and cover with about two inches of water. Place over medium-high heat.

If you want to add any herbs, vegetables, or spices to kick up the flavor, this is a good time. Don’t add any salt yet because it will prevent them from absorbing water, slowing down the cooking process. Wait until the end when the beans are tender.

The water will quickly turn black and foam will come to the surface. Scoop off the foam and bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pot, and simmer on low. If you prefer using the oven, you could also bake the beans at 300 degrees. Check them as they cook, adding more water, if needed.

Cook until tender, . Black beans usually take around 50 minutes. Although they cook pretty quickly, you are not going for speed here. Your goal is a nice, easy simmer. Sample a few beans before removing them from the heat. You want them to be tender but not mushy.

Remove from the heat and sprinkle with salt, if desired. Let the beans cool in the cooking water, absorbing the salt as they cool. This will give them better texture and flavor. If you want to keep the cooking water, it can be used like a bean broth and added to vegetable soups to boost the flavor.

Cool the beans completely, split into small containers or bags, and freeze. Store the cooked beans, covered, in the refrigerator for up to four days or in the freezer for up to six months. If I am using the beans on a salad or in a wrap, I just thaw them under warm water or in the microwave. If I am making chili or soup, I just toss the frozen beans directly in the pot.

So there you have it : sort, soak, rinse, cook, salt, cool, freeze. See? Those bags of dried beans really aren’t as intimidating as they may seem. You can do this! Your wallet and your taste buds will thank you.

Want to read more? Amazon has by Crescent Dragonwagon (no joke) in stock and ready to ship!

What about the energy cost differential? It only takes 5′ or less to heat canned beans, whereas cooking dry beans takes 1 or more hours. I suspect it is more economical to go with canned, as it takes less energy besides being much faster use canned beans over dry ones.

No lab coat here! I just went with the numbers that are most common. Food will obviously last in your refrigerator longer than 4 days and in your freezer longer than 6 months. But when it comes to preserving food by canning or freezing, you will notice that the quality will decrease after this time. That doesn’t mean it’s not edible (my family still eats it as long as it’s not spoiled).

Beans in your refrigerator might be good for 3 days, 5 days, or… maybe even a full week! This obviously isn’t a hard & fast rule, just a general guideline to help you know how many beans to store where for how fast your family typically consumes them.

Thanks for the honest response. I regularly keep cooked bean soup in the refrigerator for over seven days. In the freezer? In my experience, it will last forever (with proper wrapping and temperature control).

Well…food will keep in the freezer for a long time, but the problem is that water ice slowly works its way to the surface, where it sublimates, resulting in the “freezer burn” taste and smell as the cells collapse. Even vacuum packaging won’t prevent this completely, though it’ll delay the process a lot longer than, say, freezer paper.

Hi! I tried cooking beans in my crock pot (vita clay cooker) without soaking, and maybe it was because I burned them or maybe I didn’t get all of the toxins out, but they didn’t taste very good. Canned beans taste much better to me so far.

I am trying again and I will soak the beans tonight. So is the consensus that you must soak the beans overnight even if you are going to use a slow cooker?

Soaking is an essential part of the process. You absolutely must do it even if you’re using a slow cooker. Once you do that it will be amazing. Remember though, canned beans have TONS of salt so you may need to add more salt than you think to the beans at the end. Just keep adding a bit at a time until it tastes the way you want. They are really good.

I have found two things which seem to reduce the “digestive difficulties”. first, when put to soak, add a small spoon of baking soda. it helps to neutralize an enzyme on the bean surface that prevents it from sprouting too soon and which makes the bean less digestible. second, after soaking and changing the water, add 1/4 tsp or so of ground ginger. it cooks with the beans and won’t be tasted. supposed to do the same thing and is good for bloated tummies as well.
I have found that older beans take longer to cook. so, if you found a bag in the back of the pantry, you can use it, but you might plan on all day cooking. just check on it periodically. or if it cooks to mush, use it as a filling in something. if you use dried beans when pre-cooking a pie crust to keep the crust from puffing up, that will lengthen the cooking time as well.

I would never cook beans from scratch without my beloved pressure cooker! Soak overnight and cook for 10 minutes! And that’s it! 🙂 Just the thought of waiting almost an hour to get it done makes me cringe and I am not even adding the extra cost of gas or electricity.

For a tastier batch, I sautée onion, garlic and small piece of sausage or meat for stew (whatever I have at the time) before adding the soaked beans to the pressure cooker. Big time difference!! Season with salt and other dry spices to taste.

Also, do you get rid of the broth? It’s rich in protein, very little in carbs and a perfect pair to pour over the rice. Your pictures don’t really show any at all hence my question.

And I agree, beans in the freezer are like money in the bank. I always have many batches stocked up!! 🙂

I used to rinse the beans, but then I started to keep the beans in the broth. My family’s tastes adjusted and now we prefer it that way. For a simple dinner, I serve the beans over brown rice with fresh lime juice and chopped cilantro. It is so flavorful and delicious!

I washed and cleaned dried black beans and brought to a boil for several minutes, let soak overnight, still hard as rocks and slightly bitter. Put fresh water on and brought to boil again. Soaked several more hours, now slightly softened, but still too hard to do anything with. Could they be just to hard to reconstitute? We live in the desert area with low humidity. I just hate to through out all my beans if there is any way to get them soft and use them.

I can’t tell for sure, but it doesn’t sound like you’ve actually cooked the beans yet? They will still be hard after soaking. You have to simmer them to get the soft, cooked consistency you want. Don’t toss them! Read the full set of directions for more detail. Hope that helps.

I love cooking with beans and there are so many varieties, too.
I recently tried cooking dried small red beans and am curious why it took more than 2 hours to get them al dente. I got them at a local supermarket (Shop-Rite) and assume that age is not an issue. The beans, I mean, not mine.
I like your ideas about freezing them. That would make it more efficient to cook a lot at one time.

Mom was a home ed teacher in the ’30s, she knew how frugal and healthy dried beans are. As to the smell of cooking beans, why not just put the crockpot outside? Also reduces heat in the summer.
Mom also was an advocate of solar cookers, had one made of cardboard and plexiglass, and used it successfully for years. She also donated them to be used in Africa, to preserve sparse vegetation being used for fires.

So I opened my first bag of dried beans (ever) today and they’ve been soaking for about 2 hours now. And much to my surprise, I just checked on them and the majority of them have already split open and basically all of them are now wrinkled and/or peeling their skin. Any idea why this is happening?

Hi, I’ve tried a few times to do the dried beans thing and I can’t stand the smell of the beans cooking .No matter how I try to vent the smell out if the house it still lingers. I’ve gone back to using the canned beans but I would much rather use the dried bulk beans if I could conquer the smelly problem.

Hi, Tam – I agree. I’m not a big fan of the smell either. I just try to pick one morning during the week when I plan to be home and do a couple varieties at once. I guess you could do a bunch to freeze in the spring/summer with open windows. The smell doesn’t linger too long, thankfully, but here are 2 suggestions from :

Remove Smells from Cooking: Place a small bowl of vinegar in the kitchen. It does a great job removing smells from frying, cooking strong-smelling foods, and even burned foods. I use strong red wine vinegar.

Add a Great Smell: This bonus tip comes from my best friend who is a Greek real estate agent. Put a few whole coffee beans in a baking dish. Put in the oven and turn on low heat. Even those who don’t drink coffee will be enchanted by the aroma!

I’m not sure my first comment went through- if this is a duplicate I apologize. What price would you consider to be a good stock-up price for canned? Fred Meyer often does $.50 per can sales on garbanzo, black, red, kidney, etc. Is this a good stock up price? Thanks!

Just curious what you consider a good price for canned beans? Fred Meyer often has a coupon deal making cans $0.50 each for any type: black, kidney, red, garbanzo, etc. I that a good stock up price or do I wait for a cheaper price?

If you are looking for a GREAT place to buy beans in bulk in the Portland, Tacoma, Salem, and Eugene areas, look no further than Cash and Carry. In Portland they are behind the 7-11 on 82nd at the Estacada exit off of I-205. In Salem they are on Salem Industrial off of Cherry. For other locations check their website. Right now they have 50 pound bags of Pinto beans for only 32 dollars. We also purchase ALL of our baking supplies there as well. And if you want to save money on meat, you can purchase primals there at a fraction of the cost of the retail stores, cut it up yourself and save TONS of money 🙂

Did you know that you can cook dry beans in a small pressure cooker without soaking or venting? I went to a demonstration and we were all saying aren’t you going to vent the steam? The reply was no need to for dried beans.

My mom has canned green beans that are ten years old. They are in quart jars and taste and look as good as the day the beans were picked. Are the beans healthy to eat? If canned goods look and taste good, when do they need to be thrown out?

Rick, I would check the ball blue book for recommended shelf life of beans. Old beans if not canned properly can cause botulism and especially if the lid is not sealed perfectly after the many years. Canned goods are good for a long time, but I would check anyway. When cleaning out my grandmothers canning stock, I found things that were 20 years old. Needless to say they all went to the compost pile.

I just looked at a couple of sites where people were eating stuff canned 30-50 years old and were fine. I am a little skeptical, but check the lids to see if they are sealed and cook for 20 minutes to kill botulism spores.

I’m a beanaholic. I’ve been to counseling and attend a support group but nothing helps. I currently have 17 different varieties of beans displayed in glass containers above the range in my kitchen. Most are beans that I grew in my garden; many are heirloom varieties.
I’d like to offer a tip to save $$. Just bring the pot of beans to a rolling boil for a few minutes. Then shut off the heat and cover the pot with as many kitchen towels as you have.You’ll be surprised to find that the pot will stay hot for hours and the beans will continue to cook. If you do this in the morning you’ll have beans for dinner. If the beans are old, you may have to repeat the process.
Also, I ALWAYS salt my beans at the start to prevent them from splitting. I’ve never considered the beans I cook to be tough. I can’t explain the difference in my experience with some of the others who say it makes the beans tough.

Beans are also very staple in India where I come from and we make them curried with Rice or Bread( good source of protien for a primarily vegetarian/vegan diet). There are simple recipies available online that you can follow to make amazingly favlorful curried beans(Garbanzo and red are my favorite). Here is one that you might find handy

i am working on a list of dried bean recipes on our blog. Is it ok with you if I add a link to this post to to ours I think your post does a good job giving reasons to cook dried beans without going into too much info. Thanks so much

Trackbacks

[…] pizza dough and I’m debating trying my hand at tortilla making. Another one is to switch to dried beans from canned beans. I tried this one out this week and it does save about half the cost of beans which may be a […]

[…] at a time and buy ingredients in bulk or by cooking the beans yourself, rather then buying canned. Here is an awesome link on how to cook beans. I bulk order meat through Zaycon, which is a serious […]

[…] Before we start, let’s talk about beans. There is endless discussion about canned versus dry beans. The bottom line is that while the dry beans take more time, they are about one-third the price, have no salt or preservatives, avoid BPA in cans and, most importantly, taste better. Go with dry beans if you can. However, if you want to use cans, you can go forward without guilt – only the real epicures will know. The best way to prepare dry beans is to buy a one pound bag, soak them overnight or at least 3 hours, rinse and cook for about 45 minutes to one hour. When cooking, make sure the beans are covered with about 2-3 inches of water, which you bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. No need to cover – boil overs are too common. When finished, drain, add a big pinch of salt and add whatever you need for the chili. You will have beans left over. When they reach room temperature, put one and one-half cup portions in quart Zip-Loc bags and freeze them. Going forward, rather than open a can, pull a bag of frozen beans out of the freezer. If you are making chili, just throw them in frozen. For more great commentary on dry beans, check out a fellow blogger at dougasyu.info. […]

[…] *If cooking from dry, you’ll need to at least start the beans the day before. I won’t explain how to cook beans from dry here. Check your favourite cookbook or website for directions, if needed. One good source is here at: Frugal Living in the Northwest […]

[…] Finally I realized that I could cook a massive amount of beans and then freeze them! I found this tutorial and made a mess of black beans, the beans used most often in my kitchen. I ended up soaking them […]